issued by our oil cleared for public opinion or profit. once you make people afraid, you can use that to justify stripping away basic civil liberties. the listening post examined the vested interest behind the content you consume on al jazeera. ah, i'm roll matheson and joe how the top stories on all jazeera, the united states is evacuating non emergency stuff from its embassy in kia due to concerns of a potential imminent russian invasion of ukraine. several countries of told their nationals to leave immediately moscow's denying the charge and accusing the west of spreading false information, but to call him the ports from washington. good afternoon, the u. s. national security advisor took to the white house podium friday with an urgent sounding morning. any american in ukraine should leave as soon as possible. and in any event in the next 24 to 48 hours,

we obviously cannot predict the future. we don't know exactly what is going to happen, but the risk is now high enough. and the threat is now immediate enough. that this is what prudence demands. he warned that these russian military exercises could quickly turn into an attack on ukraine, possibly with bombings and missile strikes. and eventually a ground invasion. russia has repeatedly denied its intending to attack its neighbour, but with the current build up of forces and equipment along the russia, ukraine border, the u. s. believe it could. and in another sign of urgency, a virtual meeting friday morning, between the us president and his european allies, nato, canada, poland, and romania. soon after the pentagon announced an additional $3000.00 troops, will be headed to poland in the coming days. on top of the nearly 2000 that are already on the way, in addition to the 1000 soldiers deployed to remain. yeah. us,

president joe biden says, well, troops will go to nato countries. he's ruled out sending any into ukraine. if there is an invasion. still, the us insist there is still time to come to a diplomatic solution. the administration has taken its concerns about russia, you know, very publicly, very earnestly, very forthrightly. and there's a potential reward here. if putin eventually takes an off ramp and, and begins to de escalate, the white house has confirmed the president biden and russian president vladimir putin will speak on the phone saturday. a call that may provide a clear picture of the likely path forward. this is patty colleen al jazeera washington. patasha butler has more from kiev usa diplomat sir, leaving ukraine. washington has ordered them to go. we've also heard off to say conflicting reports about whether or not russian diplomats are being evacuated.

there been some report saying they all they've been others saying that's not true. i mean, well, though other countries are advising their citizens to leave ukraine, if they can, among them, australia, canada, some european nations, israel, a japan. now russia says that he has no intention of invading ukraine. it says lattice, just propaganda coming up from washington. but western powers, though the white are so suddenly knows how they all seeing the situation. they are calling it a critical situation. a pivotal situation, they all are saying that perhaps russia could attack ukraine in the coming days. oh, when whoa. the diplomacy does continue. even though i have to say that hopes of some poor move a diplomatic solution do seem to be a fading. in other news, truck drivers in canada are ignoring a judge's order to start blocking the largest trade route with united states. 5

days of disruption to traffic on the ambassador bridge. as for some u. s. auto factories to shut down because of a like a parts from canada. french police have been intercepting vehicles trying to enter paris was so called freedom convoy protests. they're inspired by the similar rallies in canada. thousands of police have been mobilized. checkpoints have been set up. and while control barriers have been brought in, several rollins are expected over the weekend. shall anchors president has declared that health and power workers provide essential services, which means it's illegal for them to take strike action. public health care workers walked out earlier this week to mind better pay and conditions and those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera and about half an hour after the bottom line. good bye. i

me. i am steve clements and i have a question. well, maybe a couple of questions. why did it take a year for donald trump's archives to be handed over to the government? and if he destroyed so many of his records, did he do anything wrong? legally? let's get to the bottom line. ah, donald trump's legacy was that he was unconventional and didn't care much for their traditional norms of the white house. but recently his habit of ripping up papers and throwing them on the floor or in the trash has come under a lot of scrutiny. lots of records that he reportedly was required by law to keep and advised by his lawyers to do so, went into burn bags and were incinerated in the pentagon. the loss says any of trump's memos his letters, his papers even emails, although there's no evidence that trump actually used email much or the property of the american people. they have to be preserved by the white house and sent on to

the national archives by law for safe keeping as historical records. this week we learned that trump's team just sent 15 boxes from his home in florida last month. and many documents were torn into shreds stuck together by tape. today we're talking about trumps paper trail or lack thereof, and what it means, not only for historians, but for the law makers investigating the events of january 6, 2021. today we're talking with josh dorsey and investigative political reporter at the washington post who's done some of the really major reporting on this story. and joining me here in the studio are and weisman who has literally fought against every american president since the 1980s, to make sure that their records come back to the public. and is the former chief council for citizens, for responsibility and ethics in washington. responsibility, ethics, washington, we're going to talk about that. and professor david barker, who teaches government and is the director of the center for congressional and presidential buddies at american university. josh, let me just start with you. can you lay the groundwork if, as it were,

for what we have learned about donald trump's proclivity to just keep keep ripping things up and what are the public equities that are involved here? so what we learned is that former president trump's habit for ripping up documents was indiscriminate and repeated am. over the course of 4 years, various chiefs of staff, lawyers, and other advisors in the white house tried to warn the former president about the public records a requirement that he had to keep these documents, but that he would rip them repeatedly, both in the oval office and the dining room on the oval office and in the residence . so what the white house had to do was to come and do a back system where i have a staff secretary and other offices would come through and, and go through the trash cans at night. and take them back together. so in the national archive started processing so much of the material after the presidency ended. i'm, they found there were lots of documents that were ripped in tape back together.

some of those documents were provided to the january 6th committee that had still been taped back the other and they found many other documents. they said that were not put back together. i, some of them had been reassembled and some of them had not. and it's been a particularly arduous challenge for the national archives dealing with the habits of someone who ripped so indiscriminately for so long. one of the issues josh, that gave president trump lift during his campaign against hillary clinton was that, you know, she was in a controversy that she had destroyed emails. aah! had used a private e mail server and that many that she had gone through and delivered some of those emails back, but there were literally tens of thousands, if not more, that she hadn't have. we had any response from president trump about that juxtaposition of his concern over hillary's e mails versus his proclivity to shred documents. we have not, i, as, as you said, the way partially won the election over concerns about her handling of government

records and our e mail. and what we've learned really in the past few weeks is that some of us was already known to be clear. but what we've really seen come to light more than we even knew was that the former president did not follow public records rules and laws as appropriate. but, but he took in a 15 different boxes of things to morrow. i go, i with him at the national archives to go down and retrieve, he shredded at thousands of documents or ripped them up, that they their tape act together. and he's really, i'm folks, you know, involved in the international archives described business, unprecedented as far as the number of papers they've had to put that together. and the amount of material they tend to try and retreat from the former president. and they told us yesterday the that they still don't know if there's more material, but the former president drops aids and florida say they continue to search. so really who knows that we've seen the end of this yet or not. i have a feeling we haven't been in weisman, you have sued presidencies before you successfully sued, as i understand it,

the trump transition team to prevent that the destruction of documents, if i have that correct. but tell us what the law is. the presidential records act and what you had been trying to secure, not only during the trump administration, but previous presidential administration. yes. so the president of records act was passed to make it clear that the records of a president belong to the american public there. our records, our history, not the personal records of a president, they are the right and the act also makes it clear that the president has a legal obligation. well, he or she is an office to create and preserve records. the whole idea behind this statute is that this isn't a significant part of our history that needs to be created and preserved. obviously, present in trumps actions are completely at odds with that statue. i know the post reporting, which is quite incredible, has, you know,

i think revealed just how systemic and ongoing it was. but we filed 3 separate lawsuit against president trump early on in 2017. shortly after taking office came out that aids were using encrypted, disappearing message apps to communicate, which meant no records were being created. it came out in 2018 president trump's practice of ripping up his documents was 1st made public and even then it was so institutionalized that there were 2 people on staff whose job was to take back his records. we sued because president trump refused to create records of key meetings with latimer, potent, 5 meeting by lad. i'm your lab not have records correct. and kim, john, he, he directed specifically, but note takers not be in those meanings. and we now know from the washington post

reporting, that at least some of the records that were destroy, included communications about his meetings with foreign leaders. and yes, at the end of the administration, we sued and we raise the concern. look, president trump is leisurely leaving office. there is a likelihood that he faced a significant exposure. legally. we fear that on his way out, he is going to destroy a lot of his records. and unfortunately, we didn't get very far in our last who actually was the justice department that was defending the president instead was oh not to worry. we put it what's called the litigation hold in place. once you follow the last 2, we've told everybody don't destroy anything. well, the washington post makes it clear that you need to. this is what's fascinating to me. you've got literally an administration or a presidency is not just one individual. yeah. they're literally billions of

documents that are part of any presidential administration that typically eventually go into the national archives and into a presidential library for later research and, and access. i guess in this case you got one guy present, donald trump ripping up stuff, right? that's there, but there are still still will be billions of documents out there. but i think the other question is, what legal liability does he really face? i mean, i, i haven't yet to see president trump. they say, suffer any legal consequence of which i'm aware of, of, of serious, you know, status and haven't seen that happen. so, you know, is it a toothless law while the para is to put yes, there is no enforcement mechanism in it course is taking the view that congress does not intend courts to have any role in supervising the president's compliance with the law. there are 2 criminal statutes that potentially apply. one of them for

hip. it's what's called the degradation of us property. and the 2nd statue criminal also says that it is against the law to wilfully mutilate or destroy record in a federal office. we think that there is a good argument that both of those statues have been violated. and we, i also believe that the element of willfulness is likely met here as well. and again, due to the reporting, the washington post and people like josh, we know that the president was told by 2 separate chiefs of staff and white house council that the, his actions were illegal. and still he persisted with david, you know, i have tried to sort of think about not only donald trump but other presidencies and go back to richard nixon who was a resident i worked for during the last 2 years of his life. believe it or not, as director of the nixon center. you know,

i think kissinger and nixon were obsessed that there be records ah, and documentation of their presidency, which when watergate came along, proved to be something that perhaps they wish they hadn't done as much when you look at every white house since the attitude about taping or about records, how they've managed them. i can't really paint any president since nixon is actually loving the presidential records act. because things come back to bite them . so or so, you know, as a researcher and a historian, as a political scientist, looking at this, what are the equities that you care about? what are the behaviors we should be securing from the person who holds the highest office in this land of savior, right? you know, it started with kennedy and then that practice was continued by johnson and, and then nixon and not necessarily for the practice of taping the practice of taping specifically. right. which as you know, didn't came back to bite nixon in rather famous ways. but you know,

they talk about how the goal at that time actually was to be able to, to use those tapes against political adversaries. right. i mean, the, the, the goals weren't necessarily all saying when, but since that time, as, as you noted, that practice has, has been ended. but if you think about the, the richness that we've gotten from those, those tapes, and from records in general, from, from johns and especially, and next, and, you know, as, as historians and as, as anybody who cares about the country and, and its history and from learning from our past, right, we want to want to be able to see what these people did and office, the decisions that they made, the, the thoughts that were going through their minds, the conversations that they were having so that we can learn, right? we can learn what they did, what worked, what didn't worked, and why, you know, that's the only way that we really get a sense of, of our nation is pass so that we can build a better future. josh, i'm wondering whether we should not just be looking at the torn papers you know,

in burn bags and, and donald trump's waste back. but also asking questions about official secrecy and what we're not seeing. well, it's certainly true that this president, i had given a paranoid tendency to not want anything personal about him to come out. not any sort of secret that would be embarrassing towards him. and he would often ask aids in meetings to not take notes. he would, he would ask people if they were recording him at times of the former president was kind of a secretive figure in some ways. and what we saw in this case, steve was that we don't really know what else he took. frankly, we don't know what ali destroyed it, one of the things that my colleagues and i are really trying to do is figure out, okay, so then the national archive says it's 15 boxes. what was in this 15 boxes? what else is still there? you know, there were thousands of not tens of thousands of papers that were ripped up. was

just a pattern of practice where he ripped up only sensitive materials that were, you know, he saw as deleterious to him in some way. or was he just flipping things up because, you know, that's, that's what he did. i, there are lots of questions that we stop figure out here. and we have kind of a broad outlines of, of what he was doing. but we still have lots of granular things that really would tell how furious these practices were. were like i, i want to jump to david in 2nd. but josh, i know you're a reporter and you don't often give your views. but just reading your excellent reporting on this, i am asking myself, you and i both know these folks and, and normal people who run for the presidency sort of have the office in law. they understand the public role. they see it. and i'm just wondering who would rip up the records of their own? i think i'd, you know, do you have a sense that donald trump had all of the office of the presidency or thought just sort of his, you know,

a side show think some of the trapping them the accoutrements of the office. he saw that way, but i don't think he cared much about records retention. there was nothing that i saw in the course of 4 years reporting on this with president or sense that led me to believe that he wanted to be careful, you know, keeper, of his legacy. i mean, a former aid that i've talked to spoke with him about assembling presidential library. say he is very little interest in the topic and quickly moves on to other subjects. i don't think he saw keeping his papers out of the details of his presidency and clean order as high priority. i do not david, i know you want to jump in on that as well. but i'm going to ask you the same thing of someone who study different president. we've see the archive. i've gone to research in the clinton library and nixon library in the reagan library. and, and what is the public loss? what are people like you lost when you see something like we've seen reported in

the washington post, eliminate again there the ability to understand what happened for the past 4 years so that we can learn from it in the future. but one of the things that i really want to try to understand may perhaps from, from an, even, is this distinction. you know, lots of times it's hard to prosecute someone if, if you can't, you know, demonstrate nefarious intent. ryder. and oftentimes you've seen that with, with trump ability say like, oh, well, you know, he just doesn't know any better or, or he like, you know, as a narcissistic sort of thinks he's above these things. but it's not really that he's necessarily trying to to conceal anything. and it was cathartic for him to rip up the pieces of paper and throw him on the floor. and so blah, blah, blah. but to me, more than the, than the ripping and the shredding and even the take. i mean i have to interrupt you. i do remember what he was giving a state of the union address. and nancy pelosi was sitting behind him and ripped off here copies of the union. and he did not look clean. but you know, to me even sort of more concerning maybe than the,

then the shredding and or the taking them or lago are these burn bags, right? which, which, which suggests that there was an actual, you know, practice in place. right? this one of the burn bags are typically done for classified information, right? so the meaning of classified and non classified as is i just wanted to clarify that's better. the bern bags are about classified information sent to the pentagon . so the question was, what made its way into those right? and it should have been part of them as i understand, right. it was what trump wanted in there and didn't want to see the light of day which, which seems to make a tougher case against and you know, i guess the question as you look forward and what ought to be some of the practices that we should expect from the administration, i must admit, i assume josh is the same. i communicate with a lot of senior government, white house officials and i communicate with them both through their official email account and phone number and through their unofficial g mail or aol counts even

though someone has a compuserve account, believe it or not. what are the rules if i communicate with one of jo biden's, most senior staff in a private account is someone breaking the law there? well, i know why not breaking the law, but well, what the law says it doesn't prohibit him from getting or you know, receiving or sending from a private account. but that official is supposed to take those emails and put them into an official account. the way the way it has to set up any email center received on an official whitehouse email account is automatically preserved. it requires no action whatsoever on the part of any white house official. but yes, the problem is use of unofficial devices and it goes on a lot and we're trying to get the law tightened up on that. but the obligation is

on the white house official who gets that email from you if it pertains to official business. they're supposed to put it into an official record keeping system. but you know, again, when we're talking about this, you see how much to give there isn't the law. you see that, you know, with no enforcement how easy it is to circumvent it. and now we know the president himself, who is the most significant person in the white house, whose records are of the highest value was and you know, alive and thinking about is, you know, you can go to the present the j, f. k presidential library, or even at the archives, and they have doodles from as it in kennedy that he created at the height of the cuban missile crisis when our country was facing extinction we thought, and they were preserved. and it's fascinating because they give you an insight, their doodles, they're not formal letter, borman memos, it shows you that almost everything present it creates. oh, look, i mean, i think,

i think one of the interesting questions that's out there, not just what the president's thinking bit about the different arguments that are going on around him or her over policy. and you know, much of that, you know, is it becomes part of records and archives. and then looking at the decision, the president might have gone or inputs from foreign leaders, which may very well be part of the material that josh darcy was reporting on from our lago. are the things that might be out there. and i guess, josh, my question to you would be with regards to things that we don't know, have you begun to issue for your requests for material that might corroborate or might find information? because again, i know that any presidency is a great number of people are communicating. so would those documents that donald trump be shredded be held in other parts of the government? and can you, can you explain your audience? what a 4 year request is?

a request of freedom of information request we frequent frequently used as reporters, historians and others. use them as wow to try and get public records from the government. it's more difficult with the executive branch because there's so many protections there where they don't have to destroy certain things in the white house, but a lot of government agencies, a lot of other official places, do not have that same protections. and one of the things that we've often tried to do to realistically is look for other places that would have to disclose. even if the, if a west wing proper eye does not, ash some of the documents. you know, steve, it's, it's hard to believe would be anywhere other than i and the west wing. i mean, we believe a lot of the things that he took were, you know, letters from, from our leaders or, you know, documents and he viewed as sensitive as the new york times reported last night that he actually took up a piece of clothing and we don't really know exactly what that is and that he took the famous sharpie map from hurricane doria and they took all sorts of things at

work in a personal to ham. and whatever seem to i'm not sure would be privy to any sort of other foyer request. ah, what are the other things that we've been trying to figure out is in, in a lot of these documents, are there, are there duplicates? right? you aids, i have copies of these things do. in other advisors, do people who also would have provided them? would they exist in some other form, even if a former president himself did not provide? oh, thank you. then let me just ask you last minute we have 30 seconds each, david. can you just share with us what you think the, that trump has permanently change the norms by which a president behaves and is expected to behave? or do you think they'll be a bounce back to something like we used to see before? well, i worry that he had a minute, i don't have a crystal ball with a say for sure, but i mean, i think typically that's where you see it historically. every time a norm is degraded, it rarely bounces back. you know, and, and i think that, that trump has as a sure, in an era where, you know,

we see in general behavior by all kinds of politicians that at various levels that we didn't use to see a lot of copycatting. and you know, your, i admire your expertise in, in suing administrations for the public good. but when i see unenforced subpoenas, when i see a lot of legal wrangling out there that doesn't have consequence. i guess my question would be the same. are we now because there has not yet been legal consequences applied for a change in presidential norms? going to see a permanent shift in those norms? i fear we are, i'm hopeful, you know, post watergate. there were a lot of reforms that were inactive. they saw what poles, phoenix and ministration was able to exploit. there's certainly been an effort to do that. now. i know i'm part of a group that's pushing for some reforms to the record keeping laws. i wish i could be more optimistic though, given the comp composition of congress. i would say i partisan. yeah. right. yeah.

yeah. well listen, i want to thank all of you, journalist josh dorsey incredible reporting lawyer and weisman and professor david barker. thank you so much for all for being with us today. thank you, steve. thank you for having me. so what's the bottom line? president richard nixon was obsessive about record keeping and he wanted notes and audio tapes of everything documenting his presidency. the watergate scandal change that though, and pretty much every president since has had a kind of a complicated relationship with records in archives. but none is worked as hard as president. donald trump, to destroy records of his own presidency, whether he is being malicious or not. presidents work for american citizens, their records belong to the people, and their timing office becomes the nation's history. comforted by that idea fully and he saw the job is serving him personally, which is why he more than any other president we've seen thinks nothing of personally ripping the shreds. documents that tell the story the drop years.

there's a law against doing what he did. but thus far, we haven't seen many consequences for those laws. if he can get away with it. other presidents down the line will think they can do. and that's the bottom line. ah, it isn't well, but creatively. philosophically aligned, al jazeera well explored the surprisingly between the egyptian islamic scholar, muhammad abdul and russia noblest leo tolstoy, and the french a dejection surrealists all the way breton and jewels lead to release thinkers and surrealists on al jazeera as the world's best athletes prepared for the winter olympics stating is bracing itself with the arrival of estimated 11000 people. kind of 0 tolerance corvette strategy walk and despite diplomatic voice,

which one is which again, client will bring you the latest revisions 2022 winter olympics on al jazeera lou robinson. and go on the top stories on the algae 0, the u. s. is evacuating non emergency american stuff from its embassy in kiev, and cumbersome it increasingly urgent warnings from the international community about a potential russian invasion of ukraine, which moscow denies. natasha battle has more fun. give us a diplomat, sir. leaving ukraine washington has ordered them to go. we've also heard off to say conflicting reports about whether or not russian diplomats are being evacuated. there's been some reports.